Dhe Timaru Herald. TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1895.

Timaru Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 1819, 30 July 1895, Page 2

Dhe Timaru Herald. TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1895.

the Governor, acting with the advice of his responsible Ministers. The fact of this application having been made to the Court of Appeal shows that some doubt still exists m the minds of lawyers as to the circumstances under which, m a criminal case, evidence as to the perpetration of other crimes of a like character by the person charged may be admitted. The underlying principle seems to be pretty well established. Stated broadly it is that such evidence is not admissible to prove the fact, but is admissible to rebut the presumption of accident. Thus m the Dean case the evidence tending to show that the prisoner had been guilty of other murders of children was not admitted to bolster up the evidence that she had killed the child with whose murder she stood charged; but it was admitted to rebut the contention, which might possibly have been raised, that she killed it by accident through negligent administration of laudanum.

The Court of Appeal made short work of the application m the case of Minnie Dean, the Winton childmurderess, but nevertheless the procedure appears to be unnecessarily cumbersome. It will be Remembered that at the trial Mr Justice Williams refused the request of prisoner's counsel that the Court would reserve the question of the admissibility of the evidence regarding the infant Hornsby, the finding of the skeleton of a child m the garden at the Larches, and the reception by prisoner of other children who had subsequently disappeared. Prisoner's counsel then applied, under Qection 413 of the Criminal Code Act, to the Attorney-General for leave to move the Court of Appeal " for leave to appeal " on the points which had been raised at the trial. The Attorney-General granted the application, and prisoner's counsel moved the Court of Appeal on Saturday last. Dr Findlay, who appeared for the prisoner, said m his opening remarks that the arguments which he would advance would be substantially the same as those which he should use if leave to appeal were granted. "He therefore proposed to deal as fully as possible with the application, just as though leave had been granted." He then went at length into the points which had been raised. The decision of the Judges as to "whether there shpuJ4 be an appeal or not was held over till Monday, and we publish a telegram this morning, which states that leave was unanimously refused by the full Bench, counsel for the Crown being not even called upon to reply. But supposing the Judges had held the matter to be doubtful, and, after having heard counsel for the Crown, had granted leave to appeal, a case would then have had to be stated, and the elaborate arguments would have had to be repeated. We confess that we cannot see the use of such repetition. Why should not the leave of the Attorney-General b,e Buflftcient to enable the case to be brought at once fully before the Court of Appeal, and the final judgment obtained without further proceedings ? To a foyrnan's mind the nooessity for the two permissions aud the two arguments appears to b.< so much waste of time. Now that the case is over we may say that we never entertained any serious doubt as to what would be the final result of the application to the Court of Appeal, though we were under the impression that their Honours the Judges might, on a very bald statement of the facts grant " leave to appeal " and take the full argument thereafter, and when a. case had been stated m appordance wi|;h ji^e, provisions o f Section 4X3 of the Criminal Code Act, However, the matter is now finally settled, and the fate of the prisoner rests entirely with His Excellency